New to the St Louis pizza scene, Papi's Pizza opened for business earlier this year in Wildwood, MO and looks to be a locally owned and operated pizza joint. Their menu includes Appetizers, Salads, Sandwich's, Brick Oven Pizza and Desserts (including 11 flavors of Ice Cream). Their pizza's are hand tossed and come with Mozzarella cheese. They have a good selection of toppings including: meatballs, red onions, artichoke and shrimp to name a few. Aside from the standard Mozzarella you can also get cheddar, feta, Ricotta, Parmesan, and Provolone cheese's.

On this visit we started with a side salad with BBQ ranch dressing. The salad consisted of Iceberg & Romain lettuce, spinach, mozzarella, tomatoes and onions. It was a very good start to the meal.

The first pizza was a 12" cheese. My fellow pizza eater (6 yr old daughter) found it so good that she refused to share a slice with me. I was able to negotiate a single bite, but was not allowed to touch the slice with my hands.

We also got a 14" with pepperoni, meatball, ham and red onion. The hand tossed crust was very good, it had a nice texture and did a good job holding up the rest of the ingredients. The tip was just a little soft and the edge just a little crispy. The toppings were all very good and generously applied. I was especially happy to see meatballs and red onions on the menu. The only check against was that the menu says red onions and I asked for red onions, but it looked like it came with onions of the white variety, it was hard to tell, not a deal breaker by any means. I can also report that the left over pizza did very well in the toaster oven the next morning.

Overall I was very pleased with the food and service at Papi's, so if you find your self in Wildwood and have a craving for good pizza give them a try, heck don't wait until you until find your self there, make it a road trip. I will return and on my next visit I'm getting a scoop of ice cream. Papi's Pizza is located at 17209 New Collage Ave in Wildwood, MO. You can reach them at (636) 458-1313 or check out their web-site by clicking the title link.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

It wasn't my Money! I just want to set the record straight right from the beginning. So how did I come about eating Papa John's Pizza you ask? I performed manual labor for a relitive and was provided dinner in return, dinner being the pizza disscussed here.

If you have never heard of Papa John's Pizza then you must live under a rock with no TV, radio or newspapers. Papa John's is one of the Big Three Chain's, Domino's and Pizza Hut the other two. "Papa" John Schnatter started making pizza's in 1983 in his dad's tavern. A year later he opened the first Papa John's Pizza. Today there are over 3,000 Papa John's Pizza Delivery and take-out restaurants around the world.

The Menu may very from one location to another, at the Papa John's in my neck of the woods you can get pizza in one of 3 crust: original (hand tossed?), thin or perfect pan. It looks like the normal cheese is mozzarella, but you can also order a 3-cheese blend. Besides pizza they have calizones, bread sticks, chicken wings/strips, desserts and bottled soft drinks.

We had a order of spicy Buffalo chicken wings. Other than they were reddish orange and come with blue cheese dressing I can't comment, I'm not much of a fan so I didn't sample them.

For Pizza we had three variety's, all on original crust, and each had Papa John's special touch, Garlic dipping sauce and a peppercini. The first was cheese the second was sausage & mushroom, and the third was pepperoni, ham, beef and onions. I sampled all three of the pizza's. One thing they all had in common was the crust (I use the word loosely), although it was dark brown on the bottom, under the sauce there was 1/4 inch layer that was rather doughy, sort of like a steamed bun you get at a Dim Sum restaurant. The crust, again I use the word loosly, is more like bread than a pizza crust. The toppings were ok, the ground beef and sausage were seemed to be more uniform in shape and size than ground meat should be. I must admit the most enjoyable part was dipping the crust in the garlic dipping sauce.

So the big question is, Would I eat it again? Sure, on somebody else's dime. There are to many mom and pop joints to spend my money at Papa John's Pizza.

Papa John's Pizza, for more information check out their web-site (click on the title link). I'm not going to give you any address or phone numbers, if you really have to eat there you have to look it up your self

Saturday, December 19, 2009

It seems like it has been forever since I last had something file in the PizzaFiles. I have had pizza a couple of times this month but it was a case of "if somebody else pays" both times leaving me a bit uninspired and struggling to commit them to the interwebs. I will be eating somebody else's leftover pizza for supper tonight, maybe it will inspire...

I hope to put some time into the PizzaFiles and list some of the pizza and food blogs I read to your right. Look for them in the near future.

I will be having my 42nd annual holiday in about 2 months time and if anybody has a recommendation on a Pizza Joint leave me a comment. I have one place in mind that I visited this past summer, but I could be swayed...

To paraphrase a another blogger I follow, "Blogging is a Monster that requires constant feeding". I hope to start the feeding again soon, who knows I might even get off my lazy A## and finnish those "if somebody else pays" post's .